Book Review - The Sciene of Fear

The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't--and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't--and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger by Daniel Gardner



My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me ages to get through this book but it wasn't because of the material. My life has just been crazy and I found myself too tired to read before going to sleep. Or at least read with enough comprehension of the subject matter.

Perhaps it was a "preaching to the choir" effect but I dug this book a great deal. Gardner explains how our Gut instinct affects our intuition and sometimes overrides our Head logical thought process. Because we're so conditioned to respond to Gut, Head doesn't get a chance to say "Hey, this isn't quite right" and we react to irrational fears while ignoring real dangers.

An example is how many people stopped flying after 9/11 and took road trips. Gut told them flying was dangerous. Head didn't get a chance to say the odds of dying in a plane crash are significantly lower than dying in a car crash. Car deaths rose significantly in 2002 while flying miles were down. If Head could have prevailed, thousands of lives would have been saved.

The chapter on fear of terrorists was great. The chances of getting killed by a terrorist outside of a very select part of the world is teeny tiny. Yet, because the Government repeatedly harped on it (nothing gets more money and power than fear), people truly think it's a likely occurrence.

Good stuff in this book and on a final personal note, I've decided that my fear of contracting West Nile Virus is unfounded so I need to let it go.

View all my reviews.

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